When Rachel said she had more Blue Curaçao than she knew what to do with (after the Warrior Woman fiasco), Jon started to wrack his brain for fun comic-related ideas that involved the color blue and relevant cocktail ideas that would help her use up her supply. What started as a very vague connection between the concept of a Blue Motorcycle and the Ghost Rider (based on the fact that he rides a motorcycle) became much more concrete when we realized that at least one variant had blue flames instead of orange. But then we were faced with a second problem: what cocktail would Jon write about? Joking that maybe he could just do a Sidecar, it didn't take much Googling to discover that - lo and behold - the Ghost Rider did indeed have a sidekick for a stretch…and he rode in a sidecar!

The metaphor of a motorcycle and sidecar are particularly apt both in our friendship and in our writing partnership. We frequently joke about which one of us is the hero and which the sidekick, and when we collaborate on an essay, we alternate in asking “Are you going to drive this one?” and saying, “You can drive this one and I’ll ride shotgun.” We’ve had an absolute blast doing this Schnapsidee (German for idea you have while drinking Schnapps) of a cocktail countdown, and it’s been a bright spot in an otherwise dark year, so as we ride through the tunnel toward the light that we hope is waiting for us in 2021, it doesn’t really matter who’s on the motorcycle and who’s in the sidecar, but since we had to choose...